"Five stars rising in the East" armband

[2][3] Another cloth of the same pattern was found later and has the words "put down South Qiang" (討南羌 Tǎo Nán Qiāng).

[4] The pieces were unearthed in October 1995 at the Niya ruins in Xinjiang by an archaeological team made up of Chinese and Japanese scholars.

In the ancient times the "five stars" (the classical planets) were represented as Chenxing (辰星), Taibai (太白), Yinghuo (熒惑), Suixing (歲星) and Zhenxing (鎭星).

[2] The phrase "put down South Qiang" (討南羌) refers to the area that was first mentioned in a sentence in the Western Han Essentials's (西漢會要) scroll 46 in relation to the four ancient commandery.

[2] When the two pieces are combined, it forms the phrase "Five stars rising in the East, being a propitious sign for the Middle Kingdom to put down South Qiang" (五星出東方利中國討南羌), though the meaning is up for debate.